Beijing is the World's 17th Most Magnetic City, Study States

Beijing ranks as one of the top 20 cities globally in terms of magnetism, according to the latest edition of the Global Power City Index (GPCI), which aims to rank cities based on their “comprehensive power to attract people, capital and enterprises from around the world.”

Produced by the Mori Memorial Foundation (Japan), the annual survey ranks 48 major world cities on six distinct factors: Economy, Research & Development, Cultural Interaction, Livability, Environment, and Accessibility.

London came out on top of the 2021 rankings, followed by New York City, Tokyo, Paris, Singapore, Amsterdam, Berlin, Seoul and Madrid. Our friendly neighbors down south – Shanghai – rounded out the top 10.

Beijing came in 17th, behind Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong, Dubai, Copenhagen and Los Angeles.

Of the six factors that make up the rankings, Beijing scored highly on Economy (3rd, behind  only New York City and London); Research and Development (12th); Accessibility (19th) and Cultural Interaction (also 19th).

Bringing it down was Livability (41st) and Environment (43rd). That’s a near dead last on Environment, outranking only Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Cairo and Mumbai.

Beijing has made an appearance in the list every year since it was first published in 2008, when it came in as a paltry 28th. It rose all the way to almost cracking the Top 10 with its 11th place ranking in 2012, before dropping back down to 24th in 2019.
That being said, being 17th out of 48 cities still counts as a pretty neat position in the ranking – far ahead of cities such as San Francisco, Helsinki, Geneva, Buenos Aires or Osaka.

The comprehensive study contains 70 different components to rank each city.

Beijing received exceptional scores on categories such as Ease of Mobility by Taxi or Bicycle; offices of World's Top 500 Companies; Total Employment and Academic Performance. Low rates of murder and low risk of natural disaster also added to its scores on the plus side.

On the negative side, Beijing scored near the bottom in categories such as Wage Levels, Nightlife Options, Number of Foreign Residents, Number of Startups, and Water and Air Quality.

The GPCI report is also unique in that it creates sub-rankings based on four different perspectives: Corporate Executive, Highly Skilled Worker, Tourist and Resident. According to these rankings, Beijing is a good place to be a Corporate Executive (13th) and a Tourist (17th) but not so great as a Resident (39th) or a Highly Skilled Worker (41st).

A quick look at the overall classification shows that Shanghai (10th) clearly outranked Beijing (17th). This is interesting, though, because Shanghai’s only clear win against the northern capital was for the Accessibility function, where Shanghai ranked #1 of all cities rated.

Accessibility combines air transport-related elements such as passenger traffic and direct flights, as well as daily commuting stats such as subway station density, usage of public transportation and traffic congestion.

So, as a quick summary, here’s the two cities head-to-head:

Advantage: Beijing

Economy: Beijing (3); Shanghai (10)
R&D: Beijing (12); Shanghai (15)
Cultural Interaction: Beijing (19); Shanghai (26)

Advantage: Shanghai

Accessibility: Shanghai (1); Beijing (19)
Livability: Shanghai (37); Beijing (41)
Environment: Shanghai (39); Beijing (43)

Whether you agree with the rankings or not, there’s no disputing that the GPCI is thorough.

Cities are complex affairs, and as we move around in this city that we call home, each one of us are probably only affected by a small portion of the 70 indicators that make up the GPCI. Housing rent, air quality, tourist attractions, commuting time and much, much more. What’s the most important to you in your own personal ranking?

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Images: Ling Tang and zhang kaiyv (via Unsplash), Ana Padilla Fornieles